TITLE: HARD + FAST

AUTHOR: MELANIE NISSEN

PUBLISHER: BLANK INDUSTRIES

ISBN: 978-0-6486949-0-8

PAGES: 220

DIMENSIONS:  14.29" x 10.43" x 0.98" / 363mm x 265mm x 25mm

WEIGHT: 4.63lb / 2.1kg

FORMAT: Black cloth hardcover with deboss white foil stamping, gilded edge 157gsm matt art paper and wraparound obi strip

Melanie Nissen was the co-founder and photographer of the legendary Los Angeles magazine, Slash.

Between 1977-1980 she photographed the Los Angeles punk scene. Taking photos of the fans, the bands and the scene around her.

Local heroes like Screamers, Bags, Germs, X, Go-Go’s, Black Randy, Weirdos, Dils, Zeros, Alley Cats, Deadbeats, Fear along with local legends Brendan Mullen, Kim Fowley, Claude Bessy, Russ Meyer, Penelope Spheeris, northern neighbors The Nuns, Avengers, Crime, Dead Kennedys, The Offs and visitors including Pere Ubu, Magazine, Devo, Damned, Cramps, Dead Boys, Peter Tosh, Ramones and Sex Pistols all form her body of work from this time.
 
These images are from a box in the garage and are all that’s left of a larger body of work.

Hard + Fast is a photography book, some previously published in Slash Magazine and some never seen before.

* "Misfits! Musicians!! The Summer Of Hate!!! Melanie Nissen brings the Los Angeles punk scene of 1977-1980 (RIP) back to life in a visual tour" -  Pat Smear, The Germs.

* "I’m glad Melanie took these pictures and made this book so we have proof of what we lived through because no one would have believed it!" - Charlotte Caffey, The Go-Go's.

* "The streets of Hollywood are plastered with random provocative punk rock images and handmade flyers. Sloppy graffiti artists spray paint alley walls and liquor stores. A mohawk sits on a bus bench, too young to own a car. A parade of patchwork punks march down Melrose. Patches sewn on with dental floss. It’s hard to tell the girls from the boys. The images they create have one mission: annihilate the mainstream. Change must happen. Insult. Sneer. Destroy. Upside-down crosses, the middle finger and even such forbidden visuals as swastikas. Whatever it takes. The images of the early Los Angeles punk rock movement are so brilliantly captured by Melanie Nissen." - Penelope Spheeris, Film Director.